*Lainey Woods*

My name is Lainey Woods. I'm 15 years old, with honey blond, straight hair that falls to my waist that even a perm would only make slightly wavy, and bright blue eyes that, in the right light, get a tinge of green into them. I love to read, write stories or entries in my diary, journal… whatever you want to call it, go shopping with my friends, and go swimming. I'm a total chocoholic, and probably wouldn't survive a week without my skinny cow candy (mmm…), and can be a bit sarcastic at times. The only people I really feel close to are my two best friends, Nicole and Bella, and of course my family (minus my brat-of-a-sister, Destiny).

Oh yeah, I'm also a mermaid.

Did you find that shocking? Most people do. Well, actually, I wouldn't know, because I haven't told anyone other than Nici and Bells, since they're mermaids too, but I was pretty shocked to find out, so I'm assuming so would others. I can remember the day we first transformed into mermaids like it was just yesterday… probably because it was…

"Lainey!" called out Nicole, her brownish-red hair fluttering in the wind as she urged me forward. "Hurry it up!"

"I'm coming!" I shouted, panting as I climbed up a small, but still challenging, rock wall. I grimaced as some dust from the rocks fell into my wedged sandals. Great. And these ones were new.

Who's idea was it to come camping, anyways? Surely not mine. And at Mako Island too? This place is like a freakin jungle, if you ask me. I'll be surprised if we ever find our way back to the camp. We'll probably be stuck on this stupid island for eternity.

The thing is, I don't have a very high tolerance for camping. I mean, really? What good comes out of it? "Family time", my dad tells me. Yeah right! I totally respect and love my parents, but Destiny was, let's face it, "destined" to be a brat. I chuckled at my play on words there. I know. I have terrible humor.

And the food here! Gross hot dogs galore, if you ask me… which nobody ever does! If it was up to me, we'd be drinking hot chocolate made over the fire instead of powdered Gatorade drinks, delicious chocolate fondue over banana slices instead of ooey, gooey marshmellows, and fresh fish, my dad's specialty, him being a fisherman and all, instead of these store-bought hot dogs made from who-knows-where using who-knows-what. At least I remembered this year to bring a stash of Skinny Cow candies.

The worst part is probably the limited clothes supply. All the years before on our family camping trips, I've been cursed to denim shorts and holister tees. Not that I don't like the simple look, but for two whole weeks? I'd rather die.

This year, though, I decided to try something new, called "packing fashionable clothes". I remember that when my mom and dad saw what I was packing, they rolled their eyes and muttered something about silly teenagers.

But obviously my plan of wearing my fashionable clothing didn't really work out as planned. Now, my once gorgeous ensemble is now roughed up sandals, a broken turquoise necklace (and I really liked that one!), and dirt marks all over the milky white minidress I was wearing. Sigh.

I gritted my teeth as I (finally) reached the tip-top of the rock wall. Nicole leaned down over the edge and fearlessly pulled me up. Nicole is sort of the adventurous one in our group. In fact, it was her idea to go on this stupid exploration thing anyways.

"Nici?" whined Bella, biting her nails on her left hand and twirling a lock of her curly dark brown hair in the other. She peered over the edge. She was probably was wondering how we would get back to the camp. I was wondering the same thing. "Are you sure we should be here? I mean, Lainey's parents told us to stay close to the camp and…"

"Chill Bells!" said Nicole as she dusted off her khaki capris fit for exploring- unlike my major outfit feau pa. "They're out getting firewood, and if it goes anything like last time, which I'm sure it will thanks to your devil sister, they probably won't be back till way later tonight. And that gives us lots of time to explore!" She looked out into the distance. "Hey, we should go farther into the jungle."

That put Bella into near hysterics. "Nici, I really don't think that's a good idea. People say that there are all sorts of creepy things here!"

Nicole just rolled her eyes. "Who says that?"

"The ones that make it back alive!"

"Bella," I said, rolling my eyes too. She can be so dramatic sometimes. All of those mystery shows couldn't be helping her with that. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"See?" pointed out Nicole. "Woods here agrees with me. And this country is a democracy."

"I'm not agreeing with anyone!" I said, not wanting to get dragged into another one of Nici and Bella's famous arguments, and a teensy bit annoyed she kept calling me by my last name. It got so annoying. "Honestly, Nicolett Paige," I heard her grind her teeth at that one. Someone here didn't like her full name either. "Mako Island is basically a shark breeding ground, and even though we're on land, there are all sorts of …"

"I know, I know. I'm not stupid, okay?" said Nicole with an obvious edge to her voice. Even I couldn't miss that she didn't quite believe herself. After all, I'm sort of the smart one of the group. Bella was pretty smart too, but never tried to get into more advanced classes at school. She didn't really like being the center of attention. She was sort of shy. "We'll be careful. Okay?"

I sighed but reluctantly agreed. It's not like anything major would happen. Bella was just being dramatic. Nothing unusual happens here.

How wrong I was.

We continued walking into the jungle/forest thing until we suddenly came to a small stream. The problem was, it was too big to jump across or go around, but too small to have to go find another way across.

"Nici," Bella said with a strange edge to her voice. "I'm not crossing that stream." (A/N: This is the stream that Bella fell into when she went with Will to Mako before. It's not explained in here exactly the same, but it's more or less the same place, even though in the show it is not as close to the moon pool as in my story.)

"Geez, chillax Bells!" said Nici, a bit confused. "What's the drama over?"

"You have to ask?" Bella practically shouted. "You know how afraid I am of water!"

Oh. Now we understood. I immediately went to her side, ignoring the pain in my ankles. "It's okay, Bella. We can always go back. Right Nici?" I said as I turned to glare at her.

You see, Bella is extremely hydrophobic. She can hardly stand to take a bath. Once, she even skipped school because of a mild rainstorm. I could understand how she didn't want to go near the stream.

"Well," Nici started, as I could see she was trying to come up with a diplomatic solution. "We could try to put boulders across for you so you could cross?"

"Do you really think that would work?" asked Bella nervously.

"Uh…" I nudged her. "Yeah! Yeah, it would."

I could see Bella weighing the decisions in her mind. She finally came to a conclusion. "Okay,I'll try. But you guys won't let me fall… right?"

"Of course!" we said at the same time.

Nicole had volunteered to place the boulders. After they were in place, she tested them. Once she made it to the other side, she shouted back saying it was fine. I decided to go next.

I took a hesitant step, not sure if my wedged sandals were willing to cooperate with me or not. When I didn't fall into the water beneath me, I took another step. Huh. This was sort of easy.

"It's fine Bella!" I called back. "You can do it!"

I saw Bella shudder as she took a step onto the first rock, the entire time looking at the rushing water below. And she took another. And another. She was almost to the end when suddenly her baby blue flip flops slid out beneath her, and she fell right into the stream.

"Bella!" I shouted as I slowly made my way through the rushing water, despite my efforts to go faster. "Are you all right?"

"Ow…" was all I heard from her. "I think… I think I twisted my ankle."

I looked at her ankle to see, lo and behold, it was indeed swollen. I looked up at Nici."Do you think we can get her back to the camp with her like this?"

"Uh…"

I groaned. Of course. Leave it to Nicole to come up with some brilliant idea and have it end up like this.

"Maybe we could try tracing our step back, and then finding a way around the rock wall. That way we can get back to the camp!" Nicole looked pretty proud of herself for coming up with something reasonable-ish sounding.

I nodded. "Worth a shot." I turned back to Bella. "Do you think you can stand?"

"I… think so." She said, a painful look on her face as she tried to stand on her feet. She looked back at us. "Will you guys help me?"

"Of course." Nici said. When I got out of the water I realized one of my sandals had fallen off. I sighed and continued.

After a while of backtracking our steps we realized that we must have took a wrong turn.

"Nici!" I whined, annoyed. "We haven't been to this place before!"

"No Lainey, I am absolutely positive that we have…"

"You've said that for the past half an hour! Let's face it! We're lost!"

Nicole just rolled her eyes. "Now look who's being dramatic." She pointed towards the distance. "If we get over that, I'm sure we'll find our way back to civilization."

"Oh no." said Bella with wide eyes as she looked at the slippery rocks we had to jump to and from. (A/N: This is where Cleo fell into the moon pool cavern thing. Just wanted to let you know.) "I am not jumping across that!"

"I'll go first Bella." Nicole said. "It'll be fine." Nici headed towards the rocks as I heard Bella mumble "Where have I heard that before…"

Nici walked up to the edge of the rock we were now standing on and quickly hopped to the other rock, stumbling a bit. She looked back at us. "Don't worry! It's easy!"

Then Bella walked up to the rock. I was supposed to catch her if she fell.

She peered into the trickling water beneath her. She then turned to Nicole. "Nici, is it really slipper-woah! Aagh!" She screeched as she fell into a hole in the rock I hadn't seen before. I reached forward to grab her but just ended up falling in after her.

"Oomph!" I grunted as I landed on the sandy bottom of the hole. I realized my other shoe was gone too now. That's just fabulous.

I turned to Bella. "Are you okay?" She nodded.

"Woah!" shouted Nicole as she fell in right behind me.

"Nici!" I screeched in irritation. "Why did you do that?"

"Well you both fell in. So I came in after!" said Nicole as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. I rolled my eyes. "Great, now we're stuck in here!"

"Where is here… exactly?" asked Bella to no one in particular, looking around the small, blue cave we had fallen into.

"I'm not sure." I said, a little nervous. What if we never got out of here?

"Guys!" yelled Nicole from behind us. Bella and I spun around, or rather, I spun around while Bella craned her neck in the direction of where Nicole was standing, trying not to move her foot, to see what the commotion was about.

There was a few rocks as blue as the rest of the cave, and they slanted up, as if they were steps…

Maybe it's a way out! I thought to myself. Nicole seemed to have the same idea.

"Woah." I heard Nicole say from inside the cavern that the steps led to. Curiosity taking over, after telling Bella I'd be back, I tip-toed over to the steps, trying not to step on any rocks, given that I was barefoot.

The sight inside the cavern made me repeat Nicole. "Woah." The cave was a dazzling, sparkling blue, with bright crystals shining through cracks in the wall. The walls continued up, with a wide hole at the top. It looked sort of like… a volcanoe. (A/N: In case you haven't noticed… this is the moon pool)

But the most gorgeous of all of the sights was the small pool of water in front of us, ringed with dark rocks and steps leading into the pool. The water was bright and enchanting, and I could not take my eyes off of it.

Nicole and I must have been staring a while because next thing I knew, Bella was calling out, "What are you guys doing in there?" I heard her stumble into the cave. I turned to see her leaning against the wall, gaping.

"Isn't it amazing…" Nicole said, almost to herself as she walked towards the pool and ran her fingers through the fluorescent water.

"Yeah." I said, impressed. "It is." I helped Bella over to the pool and we sat there.

"So… beautiful…" I whispered as I dipped my toes into the cool water. It felt good.

Nicole then submerged herself in the water, slipping slowly into the pool. "Guys, come on in! The water's so nice!"

Bella went pale. "No way." She said. "I never meant to fall into the stream and I don't think I'll be going in any type of water any time soon!"

"Bella," I said as I put my hand on her shoulder. "It could be a way out."

She shook her head. "No."

"Please?"

"No!" she said as she crossed her arms. She can be so stubborn.

"Well what else are we going to do? Stay stuck down here forever?" Nicole asked, a little irritated.

Bellas eyes got wide. "Is that really going to happen?"

"Not if we at least try to swim out." I tried explaining. "And if it doesn't work, I'm sure they'll send search parties and they would eventually find us, or we would find another way out sooner or later. But if we don't try…"

She looked nervously at the water then, with a shudder, slipped into the cool water.

"See?" told Nicole a little smug. "I told you…" Just then, a bright light caught our attention. We looked up to see a full moon right over the volcanoe's hole. I felt a strange sensation inside of me… like butterflies, but warmer.

"Guys… is this… supposed to happen?" asked Bella as the whole pool started bubbling like my mom's Jacuzzi. Bright sparks started drifting from the water up to the moon. Then it stopped.

"What… was… that?" I asked.

"I have no idea." Said Nicole, obviously as baffled as me. "But we should go… it's getting sort of late. Ready Bells?"

After that, we has swum through this small canal underneath the pool and managed to get to a spot where we could walk back to camp. Bella had noticed that her ankle didn't hurt anymore, and our cuts and scrapes we had acquired from our little jungle adventure had vanished. We thought maybe the pool had something to do with it.

When we got back to camp, we all got a lecture from my parents on why we shouldn't stray too far away from the camp, and we were practically grounded. No leaving the campsite without "adult supervision" (I could practically hear Nici's eyes rolling at that one).

We didn't know how much we had really changed until we had gone for a walk along the beach this morning…

"Come on Bella!" me and Nicole shouted early this morning. "The water won't bite!"

She shook her head. "It's okay, I'll just watch you guys." Nici rolled her eyes.

"Suit yourself."

My parents were making breakfast and Destiny was collecting seashells on a different beach farther away from the campsite, so Nicole, Bella and I all had this little beach to ourselves.

Splash! I turned around to see Nicole laughing as she tossed water on my belly, instantly making me jump. I grinned and picked up a handful of seawater and threw some back at her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bella looking at some rocks, facing away from us.

Suddenly, I felt a weird sensation in my legs, and the next thing I knew I was falling. And I wasn't alone. Nicole was right next to me.

The first thing I saw was a big, golden tail where Nici's legs used to be. I stared at her in shock. She was staring at me too.

"YOU'RE A FISH!" we both screamed at each other.

That seemed to get Bella's attention. She turned towards us. "Oh my god," she said, just as shocked as we were. "You're both fish!" She ran over to us as we tried to scoot closer to her, very difficult to do in our "tails".

"What happened? And what are these…" She didn't need to say it. She stoked her hand against my wet, slimy tail. It was a strange feeling. I didn't have two legs anymore. It was one. One part.

Then Nicole and I weren't the only ones with tails. A few seconds later, Bella was right next to us, tail and all.

She started hyperventilating as she took in her golden scaly bra top and the tail. "I'm one too?"

"Lainey? Bella? Nicole?" I heard Destiny call out from a distance. "What are you dweebs screaming about?"

We looked at each other in alarm. We couldn't let her see us like this. We scooted farther onto land and hid behind some big boulders.

"Where are you guys?" shouted Destiny. She was getting pretty close to the rocks we were hiding behind. I looked at Bella and Nicole nervously.

Suddenly we were all water for a second, then our tails we gone. So were our tops. I was left back in my blue floral patterned bikini and silver sandals.

"There you guys are!" said Destiny as she turned around the corner, one hand on her hip, the other twirling a strand of her wavy, honey-highlighted hair. "What was so important for you guys to have to yell about and cause me to lose focus in my shell hunting?" God she can be a brat.

"Oh, it's nothing." Said Nicole, the only one of us recovered from the transformation. We were just about to go back to our tent. Right guys?"

"Whatever." Said Destiny with a roll of her eyes and a flip of her hair. "See ya around." She turned on her heels and strutted away, her tanned skin glowing in the sunset. She was so pretty. It made me want to puke.

Now we're all in our tent, talking about our new "developments". I was confused in a lot of areas of this, but there was one thing I was sure of. I was a mermaid.

(A/N: So… how did you like it? The second chapter, this time in Nicole's perspective, will be out shortly. I'm writing this so that each chapter is one person's perspective. No switching POV's in the middle of a chapter. Review please! I want to know how I did! I mentioned Gatorade and Hollister in this, so… just sayin, I don't own them! Although you probably already knew that. I also don't own H20: Just Add Water or the storyline, but I do own my characters. By the way, even though Lainey was the POV in this chapter, she isn't the main character. Her, Bella and Nicole all are. Anyways, Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!)